conflagration
by Sionnain
Summary: Kara might love Leoben because he's the only one who still believes in her. Set during episode 4X6, The Road Less Traveled. KaraXLeoben.


AN: Set during 4X5, _The Road Less Traveled. _

**Conflagration**

When Leoben is brought to her room on board the _Demetrius_, Kara is pacing, measuring the steps between her bunk and the door. She's walked this distance time and time again, could count the steps out if she wanted. But her mind is awash in colors and lights, subsumed by star formations and suns, and she can't concentrate on anything as precise as numbers. The image is as bright as its ever been, but the _sounds_ are fading and she can't stand it, can't stand that she _knows_ and yet Earth remains elusive, out of reach.

_We're running out of time._

"Kara," Leoben says, and his head is tilted, looking at her. He doesn't say _you need to sleep_ or _have you eaten anything?_ like Sam, doesn't badger her for details or immediate results like the rest of the crew. He just stares at her, waiting, looking perfectly composed. Leoben, the Cylon who was her prisoner and her prison warden both, a man she saw often in her nightmares back in the days when she could sleep.

"I can't find it," Kara says in lieu of any kind of greeting. If there's one thing she appreciates about Leoben it's that there is no question between them of how things stand (not like Sam, with his questions and his love and his stupid, misplaced _loyalty_), she knows he's frakking crazy, but isn't she? New Caprica is a thousand frakking light years away, and all she sees when she looks at Leoben is _maybe he'll understand._ The crew doesn't, they think she's chasing shadows and voices in her head, and she _is_, but at least Leoben believes the voices and the shadows are _right_ when no one else does.

"I'll help you," Leoben says, stepping towards her, and she doesn't think about killing him with knives or chopsticks or anything else, doesn't think about Kacey or the thousands of lies that stretch like a river between them. "Kara," he breathes when he's next to her, and she doesn't answer because she doesn't _feel_ like Kara, or Captain Thrace, or Starbuck--none of those names are right, none of them are _her_. She's become something else, some vessel filled only with a singular purpose. Like a ship, like _Galactica_, named and whole but useless without that which lives inside to drive her onward.

Leoben pauses a moment, touches his fingers to her face, the curve of her cheek. Kara knows she's filthy. Her hair is dull, her skin streaked with dirt and smudged with dried, cracking paint. Leoben looks past it all, as if she is something precious. _ Like Earth_. "You're so close," he whispers. Her skin shivers from his slight touch, from the absolute _certainty_ she sees in his eyes, hears in his words. "So close, Kara."

Kara moves closer to him. She feels drugged, and maybe she is; by his insistence, his belief, the coolness of his utter calm. Leoben's hands feel like a balm against flushed skin. Most days she feels like she's burning alive from within, and nothing save Earth will ever stop the flames. Kara rubs her cheek against his hand, her skin prickling from the contact. "I can't find it. I can't." Her voice is strangled.

Leoben's fingers rub over her lips, trace down her neck, bringing relief cool as water. "You can. You will. I'll help you. It is God's plan and you _will_ succeed, Kara, you _will_. I have seen it. I know the truth that will be found, the image you see is the mirror of my own." He's breathing faster, one hand on her hip, the other touching her face. "Let me help you find it."

Kara wants to step closer to him, wants to press her body to his, absorb that certainty that radiates from him in waves. No mistrust, not here, he's always believed in her, yes, hasn't he always believed? Kara leans forward and kisses him, not because she loves him but maybe she does, maybe because unlike everyone else on this ship _he believes in her_ and he _believes in Earth_, and her mouth presses against his, hard and insistent. She wants to drink from him, all that conviction he carries inside, because she needs it more than she needs air to breathe.

Leoben's hands slide down and tighten around her waist. He kisses her back, and she think he tastes like the river, like water deep and cold. Kara feels like a star that is going to burn until there's nothing left but ashes, and she wonders if he knows, if he tastes cinders on her mouth just like she tastes darkness on his. She pulls back and she puts her hands on his chest, feels the race of his heart beating against her palms. It beats steady and fast, like the clock that ticks away towards their rendezvous with the fleet, when it will be too late to find anything at all. "Help me," she breathes, eyes searching his. "Help me find it."

He nods and puts his arm around her waist, like an anchor keeping her steady, connecting her to the ground beneath her instead of the vastness of space beyond the _Demetrius'_ metal walls. She picks up her paintbrush and turns back to the colors smeared bright against the dull walls of her cabin. Leoben wraps his fingers around her wrist, holding her steady. Kara closes her eyes and begins to paint, searches for music and light in the darkness, tries to hear Earth's song in the cacophony her mind has become.


End file.
